Destroyer's passage delivers wrong message: China Daily editorial

China has enough reason to consider the passage of the US destroyer USS Ralph Johnson through the Taiwan Straits on Saturday as an act of provocation although it was described by the US Navy's 7th Fleet as a "routine" transit through international waters.

The US naval command knows how sensitive the Taiwan Straits is to the Chinese mainland given the escalating cross-Straits tensions in the past several years and the degree to which the United States has contributed to that.

Anyone with any common sense will have no difficulty understanding what is behind this act.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson was commissioned in March 2018 and is considered one of the most advanced warships of its kind in the US Navy. In sending it through the Straits, Washington was sending a message to Tsai Ing-wen and her secessionist followers that they have the support of the US. It was also intended to tell the Chinese mainland to have second thoughts if it plans to take back Taiwan by force.

Against the backdrop of the fierce war that is being fought between Russia and Ukraine, some in Washington may believe that this destroyer's passage through the Straits is of particular meaning to those secessionists on the island.

However, Washington is wrong.

The Taiwan question is China's internal affair. The US acknowledged the one-China principle in the three communiques it signed with China, and Washington has reiterated time and again that it respects the one-China principle. Its instigation and encouragement of the Taiwan secessionists reneges on those commitments.

That the Chinese mainland has not reunified the island by force is not because it does not have the military capability to do so. And neither is it because the US support to the secessionists on the island constitutes an insurmountable political and military barrier to the Chinese mainland's military action to take the island. It is just because the Chinese mainland considers the peaceful reunification of Taiwan to be in the interests of people across the Straits.

The Chinese mainland has been doing all within its means to seek the peaceful reunification of the island. It will continue to do so. But it does not exclude the option of taking back the island by force, and it will definitely do so if the secessionists on the island make any moves to substantiate their plot to split the island from its motherland.

The Chinese mainland's determination to realize reunification of the island with the motherland is unshakable. The secessionists on the island should be clear that nothing will stop the mainland from taking back the island by force should it believe it is necessary to do so.